 
Evening in the country! A Spring evening! Ah, you dweller in the close perfervid city, how I wish I could have transported you to my side yesterday, while I stood and watched the sinking fire of day (a bright impulsive fellow this sun) waving me from his Orient window. A Glad Good-night! How I wish you could have lain near me on that pile of fresh-cut hay, redolent of clover and the scarlet vetch, lulled to sleep, it may be, by the low Up with the lark! Shelley's skylark! There he is, the blithe unconscious creature, hovering above the plough-share, ready to pounce upon the first unwary field-vole upturned from his Nest in the Luxuriant Loam. My heart is full to bursting as I pass onward into the harvest-field and watch the gleaners at their busy toil. For one thing I have my "Topical Quotations" to prepare, and am "dividing my swift mind" between the Georgics of Virgil and Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality" for a suitable selection. Then there are the straw bonnets and rough smocks of the rustics to be sketched for the fashion-plate, and my column upon the Insanitary Condition of Birds' Nests to be compiled. Yet how difficult to fix one's mind upon mere under the sighing alders, has served me for my simple yet hygienic meal. And now as I watch the shepherd lead his flock of lowing kine into the pastures, the stately old bell-wether bringing up the rear, I feel that here is life indeed, and here (had the exigencies of a week-end return permitted) I could willingly have spent the remainder of my days, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot," but inexorable Fate with her iron shears forbids. I must Back to the Smoky Streets once more and my half-finished essay on "Cotton-spinning in our Great Public Schools." Brief dream, farewell! HORTICULTURAL HORTICULTURALVicar's Daughter. "Well, John, I see you are looking as young as ever." John. "Yes, miss, thankyee. An' they tell me I'll soon be an octogeranium." Oi be eighty-foive "Oi be eighty-foive, zur." "Dear me! You don't look it. And how old is your wife?" "Oh, she be eighty-foive too. But she've looked it fer the last fowrty year!" Benefits Forgot "Benefits Forgot!"—Old Gentleman (he had been chased across the field by the infuriated animal, and only just scrambled over the gate in time—gasping for breath). "You in—fernal un—gra'ful beast!—an' me—been veg'tarian allm'life!!" TEMPORA MU-TATUR TEMPORA MU-TATUR!!First Farmer. "Aye, 'taters gets complaints now they never got in my young days." gie up matrimony "Be it true as your nevvy b'ain't a-goin' to marry that Miss Giles arter all?" "Well, you see I 'vised 'un to gie up matrimony, an' take to a trade." Pleasuring! Pleasuring!—Vicar (to old lady, who is returning from a funeral). "Well, Martha, I'm afraid you've had a sad afternoon. It has been a long walk, too, for you——" Martha. "Sure-ly, 'tis sir; Ah, sir, 'tain't much pleasure now for me to go to funerals; I be too old and full o' rheumatiz. It was very different when we was young—that 'twer!!" A worse preacher would have done for us Sexton (to a divine, who was spending his holidays in the country and who, on the sudden illness of the village parson, volunteered to take the duties). "A worse preacher would have done for us, sir, but we couldn't get one!" Predestined! Predestined!—Northern Matron (before the School Board). "I'm not against eddication, ladies and gen'l'men. I al'ays make him take his book o' nights. But reelly I calls it a flyin' in the face o' providence to be keepin' a boy out o' the stables with such a pair o' legs as his'n!!" Try zideways, Mrs. Jones Carrier. "Try zideways, Mrs. Jones, try zideways!" Mrs. Jones. "Lar' bless 'ee, John, I ain't got no zideways." |
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